On June 7, 2009, Jason Baptiste decided that he was going to run a 5K every day for the rest of his life. He has kept the promise he made to himself, but not without a constant battle against the boredom of running, mostly on a treadmill.

Thus, Baptiste made it his mission, at the start of 2017, to create a platform that makes running on a treadmill more enjoyable for all. The result of his efforts is Studio, a mobile app being referred to as the "Peloton for running," which is now live in the App Store, offering "boutique fitness style running classes" that can be used on any brand of treadmill.

"Think of it like Netflix or Spotify," says Baptiste. "It cost $15 per month for unlimited access or $99 if you pay up front for the year. At $15 per month, that's less than half the price for a typical SoulCycle or Barry's Bootcamp class up in New York."

Studio promises new runs everyday that are created by experienced instructors using playlists of your favorite songs thanks to Studio's licenses. It is truly a form of group fitness, complete with a leaderboard to spur competition and enhance performance, and contains a social component despite the individual only needing a phone in order to connect at home or at the gym.

"I tried group fitness a few years back, and that was just such a different experience. It was fun, social, music driven," explains Baptiste. "The issue here with group fitness is that it's not available to most people and it's primarily a real estate business."

Studio's audience is definitely those in New York who do not want to pay the exorbitant price for group fitness class, but it is also those who work out from the comfort of their homes, such as busy parents and professionals who do not have the time to visit gyms and oftentimes turn to treadmills.

Skilled instructors are also incentivized to switch to the platform. Instructors are paid a portion of every class listed.

"In a physical studio, there are only sixty seats, so the amount they can make is capped," says Baptiste. "With us, it can scale digitally. Eventually, 20,000 people can take a class and they'll be compensated for that."

Studio went live today after less than a year since the concept was even created. The company started to recruit its first instructors in March and began testing the app with runners in late June. Hundreds of classes are already loaded in Studio's catalog and a new class is added per day, with the goal of eventually getting to the point where up to five new classes are on the app on a daily basis.

The app is backed by Techstars, which has supported companies like Classpass, DigitalOcean and Uber. Studio is not yet willing to announce its fundraising, but is said to be "decently capitalized."

Currently, Studio is only available on iOS devices, but will soon be on Android and be supported on Fitbit devices as well.

Darren Heitner is the Founder of HEITNER LEGAL and Founder/Chief Editor of Sports Agent Blog, a leading niche industry publication. He focuses on sports, entertainment, and intellectual property litigation and transactional work, and is the author of 2 editions of How to Pl...